The invention relates to a device and a method for run monitoring of processes in a digital computer.
For run monitoring of processes in digital computers, for example by a system administrator, it is necessary to observe the system processes in the digital computer. During execution of processes in digital computers a variety of information, such as the time progression and any errors or irregularities, is stored in log files of the various components of the computer system. In a subsequent run analysis of a process, information is read from those log files and manually evaluated. To enable this, access to all systems involved in the monitored process must firstly be provided, which may impair the security of the systems. Secondly, targeting the location of individual items of information relating to the process is extremely involved and time-consuming, since the contents of the log files must be placed in relation to each other, the log files are usually very extensive and are usually stored in a text data format, and also contain additional information which is not necessary for a run analysis of the process.
The object of the present invention is to provide a method and a device for user-friendly run monitoring of processes in a digital computer.
One advantage of the present invention is that a run analysis of a monitored process can be undertaken both during the run itself and subsequently. Since information is converged from several different sources in doing so, manual linking of information concerning the process is no longer necessary. Since, furthermore, only such information is selected and processed as is relevant to the analysis, manual selection and processing of relevant information is no longer necessary. A further advantage is that the present invention permits any desired access to the analysis data in subsequent run analysis of a process. By means of various methods of accessing the analysis data, such as forward and backward review and fast motion and slow motion, an additionally user-friendly means of analysis is created. The implementation of the analysis system independent of the system under analysis (test system) enables safeguarded run monitoring because, firstly, no additional components need to be installed on the test system and, secondly, access is only required to the analysis system. This is especially advantageous where the test system controls critical processes and the installation of additional components is not possible because of the risk of a system failure. By separating the test system and analysis system, unnecessary consumption of memory and computing power capacity in the test system is avoided. A further advantage is that the relevant analysis data delivered by the present invention can be separated from the analysis system and can be sent to a different location, such as to an expert analyst, for evaluation.
The invention is described in more detail in the following on the basis of preferred embodiments.